#i have no real opinions on it bc well. all fantasy worlds have racism. its just a Thing that one grows used to in the genre

[orinthered]

In my playthrough I fucked up and skipped a LOT of content by accidentally doing things out of order/ bugging my forward. So I figured I should try again from the start and I can't. The gender disparity in plot-relevant npcs felt worse the second time, and it turns out I can only swallow the fantasy racism once; between the slurs, the refugee plot, some species being all evil monsters because gigax said so. it's the game that feels worse the more I look at it

idk a lot of the unfortunate worldbuilding bits are very much a result of bg3 being a dnd game based off of the descent to avernus module, so the tiefling racism and the tiefling refugees kinda….. gotta be there, for whatever that’s worth. i dont really have anything else to add there. mayhaps try wotr if you want something in the same vein of bg3 without the aspects of dnd worldbuilding that r unpalatable? idk :<

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

Do you believe racist authors deserve redemption? I love your blog and I’m interested in your opinion on this matter since you speak about racism in books.

hi anon!!! this is a great question, thanks for asking it!!!

i don't believe people deserve redemption. or that they have to 'qualify' to get better. if people want to change - its their right to change, to grow and become a better person. this is the kind of attitude i hold for authors as well.

but i think the harder part of the process comes after that. that there are consequences. some people will never forgive your racism, some people will never forgive that hurt even if you do get better, and that's....okay. its like - true change is always receptive towards criticism. it will always acknowledge the past to inform the future - and often authors (or white people in general) who want to change - just do. and they are usually understanding and introspective of the way they move in the world. bc once you see it, its very hard not to see where racism usually finds its footing. racism is learned - people are not inherently evil. but its also very baked into our foundation, so we are taught white supremacist ideologies from the moment we come out into the world.

i think the focus is oftentimes primarily put on avoiding or lessening the consequences. that an ‘I’m sorry’ will fix the wound.

racism is cruel. it has far reaching consequences - it isn't a buzzword. its fruitful to think about how racism affects its victims. how little children read literature and media and come away with the unconscious ideology that they are lesser. think abt the first racist moment in a book you read - something beloved. think about the trauma you carried when you realized the person you loved and adored and supported didn't even see you as a human being. every person of color, every black person has had that moment where they realized that a book they loved was not written for them; that they were meant to be the support, the helper, the friend, the maid, the 'perfect' girlfriend who just isn't good enough, the motivation, the body that served the vehicle for character development but never the main character. never a human being. never a fantasy.

and when you think about that - it becomes easier to see why people aren't willing to forgive how that racist author made them feel. bc we always have to carry that. we have to be the ones to unlearn hatred of ourselves. we have to carry the weight of the stereotypes, the ripples across media, the boxes we get put into.

personally - its a hard offense for me to forgive. its very hard for me to do so, because honestly my mind is always thinking about how there is there's often little motivation for some white authors to introspect bc the world is catered to them. its very hard to reflect when there's a foundation beneath you telling you there's nothing to reflect upon. so its extra work to actually make conscious change bc the world will always be content with the symbolic. people will always applaud the bare minimum. so its hard to gouge real change from just public shame. or kudos points.

in short - authors who want to change will change. authors who are empathetic and seek true change will always be vocal about it. and in those cases - i forgive. taking accountability, changing for the better and apologizing is all we can really ask. if an author doesn't do that than i have little interest in forgiving it. if an author cant say - 'oh i didn't mean that, and i recognize why that was harmful, i will do better.' then i cant take them seriously. its the bare minimum. staying silent and riding out the criticism without acknowledging what was harmful and how it was harmful means you seek none of the true change and it means im not interesting in supporting or forgiving, but alas that's just me!

[the-storming-sea]

also also read ur intro post just now may i politely ask about your opinions of asian media and rep. is it specifically for fantasy? or just lots of genres with general trends or themes youve noticed? 👀

omg i wrote that so long ago and my brain is kinda fried so i'll be a little brief. may expand on it later but eh its all good. these are just rambling thoughts

a lot of asian rep in media mostly revolves around the east asian experience, which is valid bc god knows they need it, except often times it leaves out literally everyone else in its wake, or it keeps grouping up certain asians together. currently south east asian cultures are particular victims of this. But sometimes what ends up happening is that there is a "fantasy asia" world where the world is not technically Asia, but it might as well be given the inspiration behind it. in my personal opinion its kinda orientalist and a bit fetishistic of the 'exoticness' of asian cultures. Like it wants asia but without all of the real people in it

like for example the world in raya and the last dragon. it was great seeing someone who looked at me on screen but goddamn they couldn't at least set it in south east asia, let alone have distinct cultures instead of just taking little aspects of culture and making fantasy. it was a great movie for diaspora sure, but anyone actually from south east asia was disappointed. Xiran Jay Zhao compiled a two part video on it that elaborates more on it better than i could right now–i say compiled bc she doesnt do much talking in them aside from the beginning of the video; everyone else talking in it is south-east asian.

another fantasy world heavily inspired by Asia is ofc atla's world. my problem is that While its a good representation of east asian cultures, south east, south asian, northern asians, and western asians are left behind.

and what bothers me is that there are many places where they can fit in. Like the swampy tribe areas and the ancient firebenders from the dragons era feel like they should be south east asian inspired somewhat, and if you wanted to make a commentary on how these lands have been taken over and colonized (or at least there was an attempt on colonization) would be interesting. or how it feels like it makes more sense for katara and sokka to be more north asian inspired than american inspired. and of course there was the one (1) south asian inspired character who was. more of a caricature than anything else. im not saying the indigenous american rep is bad. obviously any representation is great, especially for indigenous americans. But if you are going to create a clearly "asian inspired" world (like nearly every aspect of this world is asian in culture and the main character is clearly a buddhist monk, it would be hard to argue otherwise), then at least take inspiration from asian cultures?

(side note people making fun of the swampy fog people is not great. does not feel great. regardless of whether they believe they're south east asian rainforests or the american bayou)

other small things are more of fan issues than creator issues. specifically the way people treat some anime characters like they're white instead of japanese/asian and then hold them to white cultural standards. all might is a great example, where despite being named Toshinori Yagi and being from a world where the mc has green eyes and green hair, people still think hes white bc hes blonde haired blue eyes and loves america? which–side note, you dont have to be an american to love america, lots of older people who got really into the american dream still like america. another thing was when i read a bnha fanfic that described someone as looking "asian" which. yeah i sure hope so. the story takes place in japan. and then theres some people not recognizing that asians all look very different from one another even if they're from the same area of the world.

more recently ive noticed the fandom racism in dungeon meshi specifically towards shuro, who despite being from a fantasy world is clearly japanese, and from a japanese-inspired culture. and its his culture which leads him to respond to laios in the way that he does. im not saying its racist to be upset that shuro responded to laios that way, but like. different cultures come with different cultural views and different ways of responding. shuro and laios come from two very different cultures. it happens.

this is kinda a lot and may not make sense bc im super tired rn jhfdbgdhjfbgd but i didnt want to forget this ask and just never respond to it

[dateamonster]

what’s your opinion on monstrous transformations (both fast and slow), and also more controversially what do you think about having monsters/nonhuman characters serve as minority allegory (as opposed to society’s hate for them being being an allegory)

ohhh hold on this is a rly good question i think abt a Lot actually.

ok getting the first bit out of the way, love a good monstrous transformation. fast, slow, its all good. i personally like gradual slow shifts the most but its a situational thing. transformation is one of those things that like just always has to be symbolic. even more than the degree to which Everything is symbolic ya know. so like context rly matters when it comes to how to invoke it most effectively.

MOVING ON

i think from the phrasing of the ask ur looking for something more along the lines of like. for example shapeshifters as representation of nonbinary people or aliens as representation of different cultures rather than like monsters vs humans as allegory for racism. but im also not sure you can meaningfully separate the two! the latter i think is more overused so it like registers more as an immediate red flag, but its like. if the aliens from avatar werent being violently invaded by humans it wouldnt make like their reskinned stereotypical indigeneity anymore tolerable i dont think.

which isnt to say i think every story that draws connections between fantastical fictional species and real world people are inherently bad. i dont really think theres any trope that i believe cant be handled well by anyone under any circumstance. the super easy fix to bad rep via monster or fantasy creature characters is basically just have actual humans who also represent those same identities and communities and experiences so that the audience isnt drawn to connect the traits of any one group with your fictional species.

the harder fix is to like seriously analyze why you want this character to be a monster and what that says about them and what that says about you and your own experiences and biases and what you actually want to communicate with the inclusion of this character. and when applicable hire a sensitivity reader. its kinda crazy how many pieces of media seem to prefer half-assing the hard way over just doing the easy thing and not assigning the status of token minority to a literal monster.

of course once again all of this is ya know circumstantial. im speaking to like my own experiences and the things ive observed. and its weird too! bc im also speaking as someone who like is trans and nonbinary and thinks of myself and my gender expression as inherently intertwined with monstrosity. and as someone who is autistic and thinks of myself as a changeling. and as someone who is a fat person who represents themself with a pig themed sona. if i talk abt cringeass hollywood blockbusters engaging in High Fantasy Racism i feel like to be fair i kinda have to talk about independent own-voices creators who write stories and make art about their own identities in the lovely language of monstrosity. theres not rly a way to draw a hard line around the former without the risk of catching some of the latter.

so umm as usual i dont rly have a snappy all encompassing answer for how i feel abt this kind of characterization. im simply too much of a Nuance Enjoyer. i do i guess think this is something that generally turns out better when it is someone making art about their own experiences, but also unless i believe minority artists are a monolith, which i dont, i need to accept that artists will inevitably make stuff that is beautiful and resonant to some people and totally repugnant and offensive to others, and that both of those responses can be like totally justified and correct. thats art babey!

anyway slight digression but i think any case where a character feels more like an allegory than a fully fleshed u know Character is gonna flop for me no matter how relatable it is. tbqh, id rather more ppl try and fail to make beautiful grotesque frightening sensually moving monsters out of their lived experiences and their empathetic connections with others than succeed at creating bland toothless universally approachable Good Rep tm. if u know u know. if u feel me u feel me. that is all.

[oldlionsarch]

Same curious anon here, I was wondering what your thoughts were on Cantha’s whole… Omni-Asia thing? Like, the mixture of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean cultures? I know it was the main criticism of Cantha back in the Factions days, and I was curious if EoD made things any better despite not doing away with that?

personally i am not super bothered by it, for a couple of reasons.

first, while the pan-culture thing can def be done in very fetishizing, offensive ways that focus only on a mishmash of whatever aesthetics look cool without paying any attention to people, worldviews, religion, cultural practices, and such, i dont think pan-cultures in fantasy are inherently racist. racism is about a structural oppression and disenfranchisement of a minority culture, so reducing ppl to an aesthetic would definitely be racist, but for a story that covers an entire world and every continent and race and diaspora, i personally think it would be just absolutely unrealistic to expect every single individual country to be represented on its own. there are simply so many unique and important cultures and subcultures even within individual countries! if someone even tried, what would inevitably end up happening would be either so massive an undertaking it would never be done, or smaller less visible groups would be left by the wayside and their absence would be highlighted by the specificity of those represented.

either of those outcomes seems worse to me. i would rather imperfect depictions exist than none at all, as my url indicates i have been begging and waiting for this xpac for a long, long time. i knew it wouldn't be perfect and i (mostly) made my peace with that. asian people are underrepresented and struggle with invisibility and erasure enough as it is. as for the other outcome, since korea is very much in the spotlight right now bc of kpop, we would receive a lot of attention and care along with probably japan and china, while others might not, and that thought saddens me as well.

second, like. cantha isnt Literally Asia, its a fantasy world. in a vacuum where racism didnt exist in the real world and media representation didnt play such a major role in shaping ppls understanding of others in the absence of getting to know us personally, to be completely honest, i wouldnt care as much. it is what it is, so i do care, but i still do keep in mind that at no point does anet claim that they are Accurately Representing Asia. they draw inspiration from us, and as long as they are respectful of us as people and not just an aesthetic, i am happy to be represented.

the kirin situation upsets me because its an example of something specific being taken from our culture and then misrepresented. they cant include everything, they might/could have just not included kirin at all and while i would have thought "ah well, it would have been cool to have kirin but there is so much other stuff here," the specific decision to include kirin and then misrepresent them (even with gw1 lore saying why they are being misrepresented, i see you people and i have already addressed it twice), that is specifically fetishization, cherry-picking something that isnt theirs without taking the time to respect the people it belongs to, and especially profiting off doing so. does that make sense? feel free to ask further questions if you need to, i dont mind good faith questions <3

do keep in mind, though, that i am one korean person living in the diaspora, i do not and cannot speak for all of asia. these are my opinions based on my understanding of how racism materially affects us and of course colored by my own personal feelings. there are definitely some asian people who are not okay with pan-asia depictions and some who dont mind how kirin were handled, and i have my reasons for disagreeing with them as laid out here and in my other posts, but in my opinion, please err on the side of examining how we are represented and never becoming complacent and thinking racism is defeated, because regardless of the specific details, we still have a ways to go.

this got long, thank you so much if you read all this and thanks for your questions! 💗

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Hi! As someone who’s literary opinion I really trust, I was surprised that you’re a twilight fan? I know almost nothing except commen knowledge things about that series, and I always assumed it was actually bad/un-feminist. What is it that you like so much that others seem to miss? I’m just genuinely curious about your take on the hate it always seems to get vs. it’s actual quality. I’m not gonna judge bc animorphs is also one of those books where you see it and assume it’s bad.

In over 14 years of loving this series, I’m not sure anyone has ever asked me why I enjoy it instead of simply trying to convince me that I’m wrong to do so.  So thank you for that.

First and foremost, I love the Twilight saga because of the vivid detail in Stephenie Meyer’s writing style.  The descriptions are so lush and dense with sensory information that you can practically bite down on them as you read.  Bella and Jacob aren’t just sitting on the beach; they’re sitting on a gnarled log of driftwood, worn smooth at the top from where so many Quileute teens have sat upon it during bonfires but still uneven enough to rock on its branches when Bella suddenly stands to rage at her own mortality.  Meyer describes that log in Twilight, so tangibly and with such economy of detail, that we recognize it immediately when Bella and Jacob return to that spot in Eclipse.  I’ve always disliked the movies, because I’ve always felt that the best part of Meyer’s writing simply did not translate well to the screen.

Secondly, I love the feminism.

Okay, let’s take a quick pause to let everyone gasp and clutch their pearls over me calling Twilight a feminist work.  I will address the criticisms later.  For now, please just hear me out.

Twilight strikes me as a premier example of what Hélène Cixous means when she calls for “women’s writing,” or writing for women, about women, by women, with a strong focus on the concerns and strengths and desires of womanhood.  This is a series about building and maintaining close relationships, both romantic and platonic.  It celebrates beauty, and love, and care.  Bella moves to Forks because she recognizes that her dad is lonely while her mom is quite the opposite, torn between family priorities.  She doesn’t simply subsume her interests to those of other people, but instead actively chooses how and when and where to express her love for her birth family and her found families.  Most of the other major decisions throughout the story — Alice “adopting” Bella, Carlisle moving the family to Alaska, Jacob becoming werewolf beta, the Cullens going up against the Volturi, etc. — are motivated by care and devotion for one’s family and friends.  Even the selfish or morally ambiguous character choices are shown to be motivated by love.  Rosalie tells Edward that Bella died because she genuinely thinks it’ll help him move on.  Victoria creates an army that nearly destroys Forks because she’s avenging James.  Alice abandons Bella and the others before the final battle because if she can’t save her entire family, then she’ll settle for saving her lover before letting him die in vain.

Not only is there a striking concern with love and care, but there’s also a strong commitment to avoiding violence.  Bella’s eventual vamp-superpower proves to be preventing violence and protecting others, an awesome character decision that I’d argue gets set up as early as the first book.  She lives in a violent world — this is a YA SF story, after all — but she has the power to suppress violence and create peace, both in herself and others.  I was already sick of “power = ability to inflict damage” in YA stories well before I knew the word “patriarchy.”  Twilight was one of the first books to convey to me that power could be refusing to do harm in spite of hunger or anger, that power could be shielding ones’ family, that power could be about building enough friendships and alliances to have an army at one’s back when facing an enemy too strong to take on alone.

Closely connected to all of that love and care, I love how much Twilight is about navigating teenage girlhood.  Is it empowering, intersectional, or all-inclusive?  Hell no.  Does it still dare to suggest that a completely ordinary teenage girl could have valid concerns about the world?  Yep.  The main conflict of the story, as Stephen King so derisively explained, is about the romantic entanglements of a teenage girl, and the book therefore has no literary merit.  (To quote my dad’s response: “Bold words from the guy who inflicted Firestarter on the world.”)

There is, indeed, a lot of romance in Twilight.  There are a lot of clothes.  Alice and Rosalie especially spend a lot of time on makeup, and hair, and choosing the prettiest cars and houses.  Twilight embraces all the stereotypically “girly” concerns of adolescence, and makes no effort to apologize for or condemn them.  Bella isn’t particularly good at performing them — she likes but doesn’t excel at shopping, fiercely defends her ugly car as ugly, hobbles through prom on crutches — but she can still enjoy the feeling of being pretty in a sparkly dress while dancing with her sparkly boyfriend.  And Twilight, like Animorphs with Cassie, takes the daring step of treating that feeling as valid.

Speaking of sparkles, I love the commitment to the fantasy concept in Twilight, including the myriad mundanities that Meyer brings with that commitment.  If you have super-speed, why not use it to play extreme baseball?  If you’re a mindreader with a clairvoyant sister, why wouldn’t you two play mental chess games?  I couldn’t tell you, after seven seasons of Buffy or eight of Vampire Diaries, what Spike or Damien or Angel or Stefan does all day when not brooding or lurking in the bushes to creep on human women.  I can tell you what the Cullens get up to.  Emmett and Rosalie work on their cars, usually by holding them overhead one-handed.  Carlisle and Alice read plays, and sometimes talk the whole family into home Shakespeare productions.  Edward and Carlisle debate theology, Emmett and Jasper have dumb athletic competitions, Edward and Esme play music, Alice manipulates stock markets, the twins go shopping online, etcetera.  The Cullens feel real, feel like the vampires next door, in a way that Louis and Lestat simply do not.

To get to the elephant in the room — I just described Twilight as a feminist text! — let’s talk about the other thing the Cullens do for fun: they have sex.  Weird sex.  Kinky furniture-breaking sex.  Sex that Emmett (who would know) compares to bear-wrestling.  These books suck with regards to queer representation, but they are sex-positive.  They feature an old-school Anglican protagonist offering his daughter-in-law a medical abortion.  They treat Edward’s desire for sex only within marriage and Alice’s desire for sex outside of marriage as both being valid.  Like I said, not groundbreaking, even by the standards of 2005, but still more than most teen novels do even today.

There’s a passage from Breaking Dawn that people love to pull out of context as “everything wrong with Twilight in two paragraphs” because it describes Bella waking up the morning after sex with bruises on her arms.  That moment is shocking out of context, to be sure — but in context, it’s the end result of an in-depth consent negotiation that lasts four books.  Bella says that she’d like to become a vampire.  Edward says okay, but only if she spends a few more years living as a human and considering that choice.  Bella says okay, but only if Edward, not Carlisle, becomes the one to turn her.  Edward says they can use his venom, but that Carlisle, who’s an MD, really needs to supervise the process.  Bella doesn’t love the idea of Edward’s stepdad cockblocking what’s supposed to be an intimate moment, and so agrees only on the grounds that she gets to have sex with Edward as a human first.  Edward’s hella Catholic, so he requests that they get married first.  Bella’s super horny, so she demands that the wedding happen within six months.  Edward says that he might hurt her during sex, and Bella says that she wants a little hurt during sex.  They marry.  They bang.  During the banging, Edward makes every effort to be controlled and courteous and gentile, while Bella goes wild and crazy.  The next morning, she has bruises and he does not.  Edward apologizes, but Bella’s actually really into it.  She spends a while admiring her sexy vamp-marked self in the mirror, touches the bruises many times, and reminds us yet again that Bella Swan’s whole M.O. is being a monsterfucker.  Her kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.

To be clear, I think there are other aspects of the romance that get criticized for good reason.  Edward does not negotiate with Bella before sneaking into her room to watch her sleep, and he does make unacceptable use of their power differences when he thinks she’s in danger of being mauled by werewolves.  The text condemns Jacob’s “don’t wanna die a virgin” ploy to manipulate a kiss out of Bella, but not the wider conceit of all the male characters as possessing uncontrollable urges.  Bella’s struggles to adjust to a new town feel very feminine and realistic; her amused tolerance of Jacob’s and Mike’s sexual harassment as the price for their friendship does not.  Werewolf imprinting might be mostly platonic, but that doesn’t make it okay for Meyer to depict it as a form of soulmate bonding that happens with child characters. Those are good points, all around.  I just wish that most of them didn’t come up in the context of post-hoc rationalizations for loathing the femininity of a feminine text.

I’m not calling Twilight an unproblematic series.  I’m saying that it gets (rightly!) criticized for appropriating Quileute culture, while Buffy’s total absence of main characters of color and blatant anti-Romani racism are (wrongly!) not remarked upon. I'm saying that I’ve been told I’m a misogynist for liking Twilight but not for liking James Bond.  I’m saying that there’s a reason people tend to go “oh, that makes so much sense!” when I let them in on the fact that reactive hatred for “Twitards” started and spread on 4Chan, later home of Gamergate and incel culture.  I’m saying that Twilight depicts problematic relationship dynamics as sexy — but then so do Vampire Academy, Blue Bloods, Supernatural, Vladimir Tod, and Vampire Diaries.  All of which take the time to stop and thumb their noses at Twilight, smug in the superiority of having vampires that fly rather than vampires that sparkle, and for thoroughly condemning teenage girls for being girly while continuing to show men inflicting violence on them.

After all, as Erin May Kelly puts it: “we live in a world taught to hate everything to do with little girls.  We hate the books they read and the bands they like.  Is there anything the world makes fun of more than One Direction and Twilight?”  No one has ever called me a misogynist for liking the MCU, in spite of less than a third of its movies even managing to clear the low-low bar of the Bechdel test.  Because people are still allowed to like Harry Potter in spite of its racism, or Lord of the Rings despite its imperialism.  Because hatred for Twilight was never about its very real sexism, or the genuinely silly sparkle-vampires, until it had to justify itself as something other than hate for everything that teenage girls have ever dared openly love.

I enjoy the novels, and I enjoy the fan fiction that tries to fix some of the problems with the novels.  I appreciate the extent to which Meyer has elevated fan culture, and made an effort to acknowledge her own past mistakes.  I would love to be able to talk about my love for the series as a flawed but beautiful work of literature, but for now I’ll settle for asking that the world just let me enjoy it in peace.

[jcmorgenstern]

@superohclair oh god okay please know these are all just incoherent ramblings so like, idk, please feel free to add on or ignore me if im just wildly off base but this is a bad summary of what ive been thinking about and also my first titans/batman meta?? (also, hi!)

okay so for the disclaimer round: I am not an actual cultural studies major, nor do I have an extensive background in looking at the police/military industrial complex in media. also my comics knowledge is pretty shaky and im a big noob(I recently got into titans, and before that was pretty ignorant of the dceu besides batman) so I’ll kind of focus in on the show and stuff im more familiar with and apologize in advance?. basically im just a semi-educated idiot with Opinions, anyone with more knowledge/expertise please jump in! this is literally just the bullshit I spat out incoherently off the top of my head. did i mention im a comics noob? because im a comics noob.

so on a general level, I think we can all agree that batman as a cultural force is somewhat on the conservative side, if not simply due to its age and commercial positioning in American culture. there are a lot of challenges and nuances to that and it’s definitely expanding and changing as DC tries to position itself in the way that will...make the most money, but all you have to do is take a gander through the different iterations of the stories in the comics and it’ll smack you in the fucking face. like compare the first iteration of Jason keeping kids out of drugs to the titans version and you’ve got to at least chuckle. at the end of the day, this is a story about a (white male) billionaire who fights crime.

to be fair, I’d argue the romanticization of the police isn’t as aggressive as it could be—they are most often presented as corrupt and incompetent. However, considering the main cop characters depicted like Jim Gordon, the guys in Gotham (it’s been a while since I saw it, sorry) are often the romanticized “good few” (and often or almost always white cis/het men), that’s on pretty shaky ground. I don’t have the background in the comics strong enough to make specific arguments, so I’ll cede the point to someone who does and disagrees, but having recently watched a show that deals excellently with police incompetence, racism, and brutality (7 Seconds on Netflix), I feel at the very least something is deeply missing. like, analysis of race wrt police brutality in any aspect at all whatsoever.

I think it can be compellingly read that batman does heavily play into the military/police industrial complex due to its takes on violence—just play the Arkham games for more than an hour and you’ll know what I mean. to be a little less vague, even though batman as a franchise valorizes “psychiatric treatment” and “nonviolence,” the entire game seems pretty aware it characterizes treatment as a madhouse and nonviolence as breaking someone’s back or neck magically without killing them because you’re a “good guy.” while it is definitely subversive that the franchise even considers these elements at all, they don’t always do a fantastic job living up to them.

and then when you consider the fetishization of tools of violence both in canon and in the fandom, it gets worse. same with prisons—if anything it dehumanizes people in prisons even more than like, cop shows in general, which is pretty impressive(ly bad). like there’s just no nuance afforded and arkham is generally glamorized. the fact that one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, I will admit, does not help. im not really sure how to mitigate that when, again, one of the inmates is a crocodile assassin, but I think my point still stands. fuck you, killer croc. (im just kidding unfuck him or whatever)

not to take this on a Jason Todd tangent but I was thinking about it this afternoon and again when thinking about that cop scene again and in many ways he does serve as a challenge to both batman’s ideology as well as the ideology of the franchise in general. his depiction is always a bit of a sticking point and it’s always fascinating to me to see how any given adaptation handles it. like Jason’s “”street”” origin has become inseparable from his characterization as an angry, brash, violent kid, and that in itself reflects a whole host of cultural stereotypes that I might argue occasionally/often dip into racialized tropes (like just imagine if he wasn’t white, ok). red hood (a play on robin hood and the outlaws, as I just realized...today) is in my exposure/experience mostly depicted as a villain, but he challenges batman’s no-kill philosophy both on an ethical and practical level. every time the joker escapes he kills a whole score more of innocent people, let alone the other rogues—is it truly ethical to let him live or avoid killing him for the cost of one life and let others die?

moreover, batman’s ““blind”” faith in the justice system (prisons, publicly-funded asylum prisons, courts) is conveniently elided—the story usually ends when he drops bad guy of the day off at arkham or ties up the bad guys and lets the police come etc etc. part of this is obviously bc car chases are more cinematic than dry court procedurals, but there is an alternate universe where bruce wayne never becomes batman and instead advocates for the arkham warden to be replaced with someone competent and the system overhauled, or in programs encouraging a more diverse and educated police force, or even into social welfare programs. (I am vaguely aware this is sometimes/often part of canon, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s the main focus. and again, I get it’s not nearly as cinematic).

overall, I think the most frustrating thing about the batman franchise or at least what I’ve seen or read of it is that while it does attempt to deal with corruption and injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system/government, it does so either by treating it as “just how life is” or having Dick or Jim Gordon or whoever the fuckjust wipe it out by “eliminating the dirty cops,” completely ignoring the non-fantasy ways these problems are dealt with in real life. it just isn’t realistic. instead of putting restrictions on police violence or educating cops on how to use their weapons or putting work into eradicating the culture of racism and prejudice or god basically anything it’s just all cinematized into the “good few” triumphing over the bad...somehow. its always unsatisfying and ultimately feels like lip service to me, personally.

this also dovetails with the very frustrating way mental health/”insanity” or “madness” is dealt with in canon, very typical of mainstream fiction. like for example:“madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.” yikes, if by ‘push’ you mean significant life stressors, genetic load, and environemntal influences,  then sure. challenge any dudebro joker fanboy to explain exactly what combination of DSM disorders the joker has to explain his “””insanity””” and see what happens. (these are, in fact, my plans for this Friday evening. im a hit at parties).

anyway I do really want to wax poetic about that cop scene in 1x06 so im gonna do just that! honestly when I first saw that I immediately sat up like I’d sat on a fucking tack, my cultural studies senses were tingling. the whole “fuck batman” ethos of the show had already been interesting to me, esp in s1, when bruce was basically standing in for the baby boomers and dick being our millennial/GenX hero. I do think dick was explicitly intended to appeal to a millennial audience and embody the millennial ethos. By that logic, the tension between dick and Jason immediately struck me as allegorical (Jason constantly commenting on dick being old, outdated, using slang dick doesn’t understand and generally being full of youthful obnoxious fistbumping energy).

Even if subconsciously on the part of the writers, jason’s over-aggressive energy can be read as a commentary on genZ—seen by mainstream millennial/GenX audiences as taking things too far. Like, the cops in 1x06 could have been Nick Zucco’s hired men or idk pretty much anyone, yet they explicitly chose cops and even had Jason explain why he deliberately went after them for being cops so dick (cop) could judge him for it. his rationale? he was beaten up by cops on the street, so he’s returning the favor. he doesn’t have the focused “righteous” rage of batman or dick/nightwing towards valid targets, he just has rage at the world and specifically the system—framed here as unacceptable or fanatical. as if like, dressing up like a bat and punching people at night is, um, totally normal and uncontroversial.

on a slightly wider scope, the show seems to internally struggle with its own progressive ethos—on the one hand, they hire the wildly talented chellah man, but on the other hand they will likely kill him off soon. or they cast anna diop, drawing wrath from the loudly racist underbelly of fandom, but sideline her. perhaps it’s a genuine struggle, perhaps they simply don’t want to alienate the bigots in the fanbase, but the issue of cops stuck out to me when I was watching as an social issue where they explicitly came down on one side over the other. jason’s characterization is, I admit and appreciate, still nuanced, but I’d argue that’s literally just bc he’s a white guy and a fan favorite. cast an actor of color as Jason and see how fast fandom and the writer’s room turns on him.

anyway i don’t really have the place to speak about what an explicitly nonwhite!cop!dick grayson would look like, but I do think it would be a fascinating and exciting place to start in exploring and correcting the kind of vague and nebulous complaints i raise above. (edit: i should have made more clear, i mean in the show, which hasn’t dealt with dick’s heritage afaik). also, there’s something to be said about the cop vs detective thing but I don’t really have the brain juice or expertise to say it? anyway if you got this far i hope it was at least interesting and again pls jump in id love to hear other people’s takes!!

tldr i took two (2) cultural studies classes and have Opinions

[huliastvdiner]

I wanted to talk about a conversation happening on Twitter rn about Black fantasy. I have a lot of thoughts that wouldn’t fit into the character limit so I want to talk about it here. Someone posted that it’s not realistic to expect Black (American) fantasy to not discuss racism, colonialism, police brutality etc. This post is likely a response to the wave of ppl on Twitter saying we want Black vampires and mermaids and faeries but without the slavery and racism and oppression attached to it. They want to see Black magical creatures do things without all the stuff that comes with being Black. The OP was a response to that and I agree with the posts’ take. They are now dragging the OP for this take saying things like “that’s why it’s called fantasy. It’s not real. What’s not clicking”. But if they actually read fantasy written by Black authors they’d know that the OP’s take is relevant.

Sci-fi/fantasy as a genre has been defined by its critique on modern social issues reimagined through fantastical, speculative lens. Early sci-fi/fantasy was written to critique things like climate change, capitalism, wealth inequality, racism, colonialism, etc. Most early Black fantasy authors who we revere were writing SFF that addressed the oppression of current social norms and institutions. Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, Nnedi Okorafor, etc. Even newer more contemporary Black SFF authors write about these things in their fantasy novels. Tomi Adeyemi, NK Jemison, Rivers Solomon, Bethanny C Morrow, Rena Barron and more. This is something that Asian and Indigenous authors do in their fantasy as well. They address themes of colonialism, imperialism, war, imbalanced power dynamics, and exploitation in their work bc those things inform the reality they live and there has been no facet of life that hasn’t been impacted my colonialism and racism. The Poppy War and Jade City are very popular fantasy series by Asian authors that prominently discuss imperialism. That is the world that white people have built. So to balk at when non-white fantasy discusses colonialism seems reductive and it makes me wonder if you feel shame for your history.

When ppl say we just want to see (insert Black magical creature here) doing things” that seems reductive and obtuse to me bc you don’t want to address how a lot of fantasy world-building is based on reality. I also think this take sort of reaffirms white privilege. White supremacy/privilege has enabled white authors to lack the self awareness of how colonialism informs reality. They get to write that innocuous fantasy (that Black ppl now want) bc they don’t have to consider how white supremacist ideologies and constructs affect people’s lives for generations afterwards. That’s how a fantasy like Game of Thrones can exist where “coincidentally” all the melanated ppl happen to be enslaved and degraded but no one bats an eye at it bc in this world race and racism don’t exist. White authors’ lack of social awareness allows them to write about fantasy creatures just doing things bc their world race and colonialism isn’t a thing.

There are so many Black fantasy authors coming up now and this conversation has shown me that people aren’t reading them which is frustrating. This conversation would be more constructive if ppl were actually reading the Black fantasy that’s already out there bc then they’d have a more informed opinion about why they want Black fantasy without the “trauma” as they call call it. However, they aren’t reading those books so that makes their point null in my mind. This is the fantasy that non-white authors are already writing. This conversation falls in line with the “no black trauma” campaign that’s happening on Twitter. This take is also fruitless to me bc the “trauma” they’re talking about is usually Black history (slavery, Jim Crow era) and just the lived reality of being Black ie racism, poverty, homophobia, transphobia, etc. This is a really long post already and I could definitely say more about it but I’ll end it here. Thanks for coming to my TED talk 😅😂.